Posted on 12/18/2007 1:46:27 PM PST by knighthawk
Lebanese judicial authorities charged 31 al Qaeda-linked individuals on Tuesday for plotting to attack a church and other religious sites in the Christian town of Zahleh in the eastern Bekaa Valley. According to Reuters, judicial sources said the suspects were also charged with possessing illegal weapons including rockets and forging documents. Death sentences were recommended for 14 of them.
Eighteen of the suspects, who include Lebanese, Syrians and a Saudi, were arrested over the past few months and judiciary sources said the cell was led by a Saudi and a Syrian in Lebanon. There were 13 on the run, including al Qaeda leader in Syria, Salahuddin Mohammad Saleh, also known as Abu Ahmad.
Most of the suspects were arrested while the Lebanese army was fighting al Qaeda-inspired fighters in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon earlier this year.
Ping
This is not a Holy War. Move along - nothing to see here.
Ah's mad,
You's mad,
we's all mad
at Ahmad.
This is a very summarized report.
The investigations showed that the coordinator between the Al-Qaeda-Lebanon and Al-Qaeda-Gulf-Iraq is the Saudi national Fahd Abdel Aziz Mghames, moving under a fake Saudi passport of Sharaf Ibn Mohammad Mansoor Al-Oseimi Al-Oteibi. He took very good care of the logistics with Saudi money.
Part of this gang was arrested in 2004 after they bombed a Macdonald restaurant in Beirut and planning to bomb the Italian Embassy. However, on July 2005, the newly elected parliament of the “Cedar Revolution” voted a special amnesty for these thugs, together with another a-Qaeda related organization that fought the lebanese army back on New Year’s eve 1999-2000, and the leader of the christian Lebanese Forces emprisoned for life since 1994.
They were planning this time (summer 2007, during the Nahr El Bared fight) to shoot rockets at the nearby christian town of Zahleh, then organizing kidnappings and attacks at neighboring shi’a villages so that they look as a retaliation by christians.....
Part of this organization which is known by the name “gang of the thirteen”, arrested earlier, revealed its links to the assassination of late prime minister Rafic Hariri (14 Feb. 2005).
Very imaginative people.
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